Is Las Vegas ready for a steady ‘Purple Rain’?
LAS VEGAS — Will Prince transform Las Vegas, or will Las Vegas transform Prince? That was the question at Wednesday’s VIP preview of the funk-soul master’s new Club 3121 and restaurant at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. What became clear during this evening of fine dining, “purple carpet” posing, corporate ballyhoo and minimal if excellent music is that Prince and Las Vegas have already journeyed close enough in spirit to make this union logical, and possibly even inspired.
The latest pop headliner to claim a stake in the kingdom of Cirque du Soleil, Prince will appear every Friday and Saturday starting tonight at the circular 900-seat nightclub just off the Rio’s main gaming floor. On Wednesdays he’ll present other performers, such as old cronies Sheila E. and Chaka Khan and new proteges Tamar Davis and the Twinz, and he may have some input into the casino’s long-standing Latin night every Thursday. He’s also helped the casino reinvent the 11-year-old Fiore Steakhouse as 3121 Jazz Cuisine.
“This is his room,” said John Meglen, president and co-chief executive of Concerts West/AEG Live, the company behind Prince’s successful 2004 “Musicology” tour and his move to the Rio. “3121 is about where the party’s at. Prince knows what an audience wants, and he delivers.”
Prince only delivered a small package Wednesday, playing just three songs on 3121’s big, spare stage: the fierce rocker “Fury,” from the recently released album that gives the club its name, and two chestnuts, “Purple Rain” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” Though frustratingly short -- most Prince shows really heat up after the third number -- it was a proper preview of his weekend sets, which will change frequently but likely always offer a similar mix of old and new material.
Flanked by club muses the Twinz (the singing and dancing sisters who made a splash on “Australian Idol” before Prince nabbed them for his musical entourage) and looking like a suave Little Richard in an orange zoot suit, Prince teased the crowd of local VIPs (fellow Rio regulars Penn and Teller, former “Charlie’s Angel” Tanya Roberts) and club kids with several incendiary guitar solos and some cool catwalk strutting. “I like Las Vegas!” he intoned, reminding the crowd that he’ll be around indefinitely.
This twist in Prince’s life path emerged only months ago, when he dropped in during his longtime pal Morris Day’s Rio Labor Day engagement. He’d been throwing exclusive house parties in Los Angeles for a while, and the comfort of a permanent setting appealed to him, so he approached Concerts West/AEG Live. The chromatically obsessed star chose the Rio, it was whispered Wednesday, because its decor is largely purple.
The artist reportedly has taken up residence in one of the Rio’s high-roller Palazzo suites, the better to supervise all aspects of Club 3121. His desire to create a total environment -- complete with Asian-inflected cuisine prepared by his personal chef, Spago-trained Lena Morgan, and even a scent, a cinnamon and sandalwood blend that wafted through the club -- can be fulfilled here, where the outside world gives way to whatever whimsy the casinos impose.
Prince has never limited himself to mere music making, though he honors that process above all. His many films have expanded on the narratives in his songs; his elaborate tours have fleshed out the fantasies embedded in his funk and soul. Club 3121 spokeswomen the Twinz are merely the latest in a long line of women who’ve embodied his aesthetic vision. Even his costumes are consistent from year to year, all playing into a psychedelic vision of childlike pleasure and dreamy elegance, and multiracial pride.
It’s already apparent that he hopes to establish that vision at the Rio. The 3121 nightclub, formerly home to an erotic revue, pulsed with a funky soundtrack, including Grandmaster Flash, the Roots and Prince himself, as 12 video screens transmitted a visual history of American dancing, intercut with footage of Prince himself. The restaurant aimed for the feeling of a 1940s jazz palace, but with some of the steakhouse’s Italianate decor still in place, it got only halfway there. Eventually, Prince’s vision will dominate this corner of the Rio, and Las Vegas may finally have a casino space grounded in African American pride.
With their fairy-tale architecture and all-encompassing flash, casinos encourage visitors to take refuge in their dreams; Prince’s live performances, which can turn the coldest sports arena into a utopian dance floor, do something similar. So Vegas makes sense for him. And Vegas is looking for something fleshier: the tangible personalities of established stars, instead of the vague allure of showgirls and spectacle. It’s the antidote to all that Cirque: a relatively intimate encounter with a star that many audience members know only from recordings and big shows.
Only time and Prince himself will determine whether Club 3121 will really take root. But Penn Jillette, who showed up Wednesday for the fun and the funk, predicts it will. “Will everybody in Vegas start wearing peach, because he’s here?” he said, entering the club. “I don’t think so. But maybe a few will.”
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Prince’s Club 3121
Where: Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, 3700 W. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas
When: 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, starting tonight
Price: $125
Contact: (702) 777-7776
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